Definition of a cult

I sell the things you need to be
I’m the smiling face of your T.V.
I’m the Cult of Personality
I exploit you; still you love me
I tell you one and one makes three
I’m the Cult of Personality
Like Joseph Stalin and Gandhi
I’m the Cult of Personality

Neon lights, Nobel Prize
When a leader speaks, that leader dies
You won’t have to follow me
Only you can set you free

You gave me fortune, you gave me fame
You gave me power in your God’s name
I’m every person you need to be
I am the Cult of Personality

-Living Colour

Real honesty is accepting the theories that best explain the actual data even if those explanations contradict our cherished beliefs.-Scotty

Tricker than that: “We are the seekers of truth, all you other guys are dogmatic fools.” See what I mean?

Got it… so then where does that leave us? A cult is any differentiation of belief or the pursuit of belief? A cult is any wedge that is used to divide people into different ideological groups, regardless of religion?

It’s a shame they don’t teach grammar in schools any more. This is just a matter of learning how to conjugate verbs…

I am a person of faith.You believe in some pretty strage ****.He is in a cult.

Hmm, look at capital-L Libertarianism and the Randroids. They include plenty of cult-like behavior and beliefs. Ayn Rand’s Inner Circle of worshippers had most of the classic “tells”. I’ve seen martial arts schools that fit the bill perfectly.

I am a person of faith.You believe in some pretty strage ****.He is in a cult.

Hmm, look at capital-L Libertarianism and the Randroids. They include plenty of cult-like behavior and beliefs.

If God inspired religion why would he remain silent while religions spend thousand of years torturing and killing each other in the name of morality??

Not exactly the point I was trying to make. Nobody believes that his own beliefs are crazy and cultish. Someone else’s certainly, especially if it’s a stranger whom you don’t have to personally be nice to.

Cults aren’t limited to organizations founded around supernatural gods. Political parties, people and completely secular philosophy can excite the same pathology.

If this wasn’t repeated over and over again without scrutiny it would be considered strange ****!

Most religious people accept the Good God hypothosis even though God doesn’t earn trust by comunicating in a way people can understand. He comunicates in “mysterious ways” that people can’t interpret in the same way and so they fight about it.

The appropiate way to earn trust involves comunication.

Again, that’s not limited to supernatural leaders. The Premier and President of Ukraine are just about sticking knives into each other about who betrayed the Glorious Orange Revolution. It’s part of the human condition even when there is direct communication.

Various mystics would say that the communication is available. You just have to learn how to listen.The Sufis do it. The Buddhists do it. Tlingit Shamans do it. Purely secular folks doing spiritual autolysis do it. Ancient Hindu Yogis did it. And they all end up with pretty much the same methods and conclusions even though their theology can be worlds apart.

Get the chattering monkey to quiet down. Clear out the garbage. Replace bad habits with good ones. Learn to really see what’s going on inside your head and outside. Know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Get past the common pitfalls. Become a real functioning adult instead of an adolescent. Give up unnecessary attachments. Realize that all of them are unnecessary. Maintain a moral center while you’re doing all this.

Getting out of your own way and clearing up your mind isn’t easy. When you don’t you mostly hear your own ego or whatever people tell you to believe. And that usually involves things like “I have the absolute Truth. It’s mine, all mine. Everyone who isn’t just like me is evil and deserves to die.”

Afterwards? I don’t know. I’m not a Buddha or a Saint or even a functioning awake human being. But I’ve met a few people who seem to be closer to that. They seem to have found something that works. It involves a lot of compassion and doesn’t have much room for killing infidels. That’s probably why the Established Church (anyone’s Established Church) hates people like that and goes out of its way to stomp the teachings out or hide them away where the common herd can’t get near. Kings don’t like people who look at the Emperor’s New Clothes and laugh.

In America today the Fundamentalist Christian Church and the Fundamentalist Capitalist Church are the most dangerous. In Russia it’s the Church of Holy Mother Russia’s Imperial Might. In Saudi Arabia it’s Wahabism. In Swaziland it’s the Cult of Absolute Monarchy. Belief in a supernatural being is completely optional. The mental disease is the same.

Getting rid of gods won’t fix the problem. Getting rid of the problem will fix the gods. And we’ll always create gods even if we call them something else.

I am a person of faith.You believe in some pretty strage ****.He is in a cult.

Hmm, look at capital-L Libertarianism and the Randroids. They include plenty of cult-like behavior and beliefs.

If God inspired religion why would he remain silent while religions spend thousand of years torturing and killing each other in the name of morality??

Not exactly the point I was trying to make. Nobody believes that his own beliefs are crazy and cultish. Someone else’s certainly, especially if it’s a stranger whom you don’t have to personally be nice to.

Cults aren’t limited to organizations founded around supernatural gods. Political parties, people and completely secular philosophy can excite the same pathology.

If this wasn’t repeated over and over again without scrutiny it would be considered strange ****!

Most religious people accept the Good God hypothosis even though God doesn’t earn trust by comunicating in a way people can understand. He comunicates in “mysterious ways” that people can’t interpret in the same way and so they fight about it.

The appropiate way to earn trust involves comunication.

Again, that’s not limited to supernatural leaders. The Premier and President of Ukraine are just about sticking knives into each other about who betrayed the Glorious Orange Revolution. It’s part of the human condition even when there is direct communication.

Various mystics would say that the communication is available. You just have to learn how to listen.The Sufis do it. The Buddhists do it. Tlingit Shamans do it. Purely secular folks doing spiritual autolysis do it. Ancient Hindu Yogis did it. And they all end up with pretty much the same methods and conclusions even though their theology can be worlds apart.

Get the chattering monkey to quiet down. Clear out the garbage. Replace bad habits with good ones. Learn to really see what’s going on inside your head and outside. Know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Get past the common pitfalls. Become a real functioning adult instead of an adolescent. Give up unnecessary attachments. Realize that all of them are unnecessary. Maintain a moral center while you’re doing all this.

Getting out of your own way and clearing up your mind isn’t easy. When you don’t you mostly hear your own ego or whatever people tell you to believe. And that usually involves things like “I have the absolute Truth. It’s mine, all mine. Everyone who isn’t just like me is evil and deserves to die.”

Afterwards? I don’t know. I’m not a Buddha or a Saint or even a functioning awake human being. But I’ve met a few people who seem to be closer to that. They seem to have found something that works. It involves a lot of compassion and doesn’t have much room for killing infidels. That’s probably why the Established Church (anyone’s Established Church) hates people like that and goes out of its way to stomp the teachings out or hide them away where the common herd can’t get near. Kings don’t like people who look at the Emperor’s New Clothes and laugh.

In America today the Fundamentalist Christian Church and the Fundamentalist Capitalist Church are the most dangerous. In Russia it’s the Church of Holy Mother Russia’s Imperial Might. In Saudi Arabia it’s Wahabism. In Swaziland it’s the Cult of Absolute Monarchy. Belief in a supernatural being is completely optional. The mental disease is the same.

Getting rid of gods won’t fix the problem. Getting rid of the problem will fix the gods. And we’ll always create gods even if we call them something else.

Welcome to the forum. Nice point, we’re always primed to fall into some cult or at least exhibit cultish behavior over something or other. And the remedy:

Get the chattering monkey to quiet down. Clear out the garbage. Replace bad habits with good ones. Learn to really see what’s going on inside your head and outside. Know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Get past the common pitfalls. Become a real functioning adult instead of an adolescent. Give up unnecessary attachments. Realize that all of them are unnecessary. Maintain a moral center while you’re doing all this.

Or, from the CD “One Truth” (by a Turkish musician whose name I don’t have immediately at hand):

“All the same, all the same,
we’ve been playing the same game,
the same game since the beginning.

Know yourself that’s the power
Watch your breath that’s the wisdom

That’s all that has been learned
by the children of Adam
since the Garden of Eden.”

Welcome to the forum. Nice point, we’re always primed to fall into some cult or at least exhibit cultish behavior over something or other.

...

Or, from the CD “One Truth” (by a Turkish musician whose name I don’t have immediately at hand):

“All the same, all the same,
we’ve been playing the same game,
the same game since the beginning.

Know yourself that’s the power
Watch your breath that’s the wisdom

That’s all that has been learned
by the children of Adam
since the Garden of Eden.”

Heh. That would be Omar Faruk Tekbilek, one of the very best. And Mevlevi (Whirling Dervish)-trained although he never officially joined the Order.

Thanks, I’ve been wanting to get some of his other CDs, once things settle down and I’m in one place for more than a few weeks. Nice to know about the Mevlevi training, I figured he was coming from one of the dervish orders.

Nice point, we’re always primed to fall into some cult or at least exhibit cultish behavior over something or other.

Got a mouse in your pocket?

telner - 09 September 2008 03:31 AM

burt - 09 September 2008 01:13 PM

And the remedy:

Get the chattering monkey to quiet down. Clear out the garbage. Replace bad habits with good ones. Learn to really see what’s going on inside your head and outside. Know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Get past the common pitfalls. Become a real functioning adult instead of an adolescent. Give up unnecessary attachments. Realize that all of them are unnecessary. Maintain a moral center while you’re doing all this.

That’s all summed up in the sentence “Become a real functioning adult instead of an adolescent.” In the elaboration I’d add, learn to govern your passions so you can keep your emotions from hijacking your intellect.”

This is pretty much antithetical to the practice of religious faith.

Byron

- Feeding a troll just gives it a platform and amplifies its voice.

—

Reason is to understanding as theory is to music, and critical thinking as mastery of theory.

“We say, ‘Love your brother.’ We don’t say it really, but… well we don’t literally say it. We don’t really, literally mean it. No, we don’t believe it either. But that message should be clear.”—David St. Hubbins/Nigel Tufnel